Farmington's Riverfest celebration will go back to usual location this year

After being partially uprooted last year because of an overflowing Animas River, Farmington’s annual Riverfest celebration over Memorial Day weekend will return to its usual surroundings this year, festival officials say.

The three-day event, which attracts tens of thousands of people to the banks of the Animas River just east of downtown Farmington for live music, food, art, children’s activities and river recreation, will take place Friday, May 24 through Sunday, May 26 in Berg and Animas parks.

A record-setting snowpack last spring and the ensuing runoff forced officials at the River Reach Foundation — the Farmington-based nonprofit organization that presents the festival each year — to abandon many of the event’s traditional sites along the river in Animas Park because they were submerged or in danger of being underwater and move them south to Boyd Park.

But unless the Four Corners area gets walloped by a major snowstorm or two over the next month, that won’t be a problem this spring, said D’Ann Waters, the president of the River Reach Foundation.

“I think everything’s going to be just fine this year,” she said.

A healthy amount of precipitation in San Juan County in January, February and March left the snow-water equivalent of the snowpack in the San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan rivers watershed at slightly above normal a month ago. But with rapidly rising temperatures in the region, that figure has declined significantly since then, falling to 74% of normal by April 23.

Still, the Animas River is expected to feature a robust — but not too robust — flow over the holiday weekend. That means the events that were held at Boyd Park last year will move back to Animas Park this year, while the river itself should provide good whitewater rafting opportunities during the festival.

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Waters said Boyd Park proved to be such an able and popular replacement site last year that River Reach Foundation officials have decided to use it as an auxiliary site this year. A car show will be held there on Saturday, May 25.

There are other new attractions in the works for this year’s festival, as well. Waters said mechanical bull rides will be offered throughout the weekend at Rocky Reach Landing. And she is hoping to reach an agreement soon with officials at Farmington Area Single Track — a local bicycle advocacy group — to put together a bicycle obstacle course for children at Cottonwood Landing on Sunday, May 26.

Waters said each of the arts and crafts vendors spaces already had been reserved by April 24, and one of the event’s more popular draws — the annual Duck Race fundraiser — will return this year after being cancelled last year because of the high water. The Wiener Dog Races, the Recycled Fashion Show and performances by the White Mountain Apache Crown Dancers also are scheduled again this year.

For a full Riverfest schedule, visit riverfestnewmexico.com.

Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com.Support local journalism with a digital subscription: http://bit.ly/2I6TU0e.

This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Farmington's Riverfest will return to usual surroundings this year